Various global or local communications networks (the Internet, the World Wide Web, local area networks and the like) offer a user a vast amount of information. The information includes a multitude of contextual topics, such as but not limited to, news and current affairs, maps, company information, financial information and resources, traffic information, games and entertainment related information. Users use a variety of client devices (desktop, laptop, notebook, smartphone, tablets and the like) to have access to rich content (like images, audio, video, animation, and other multimedia content from such networks).
The user can access the information available on the Internet by several means. The given user can access a particular resource directly, either by typing an address of the resource (typically an URL or Universal Resource Locator, such as www.webpage.com) or by clicking a link in an e-mail or in another web resource. This is particularly useful when the user knows what the resource she or he is interested in.
Alternatively, the given user may conduct a search using a search engine to locate a resource of interest. The latter is particularly suitable in those circumstances, where the given user knows a topic of interest, but does not know the exact address of the resource she is interested in. There are numerous search engines available to the user. Some of them are considered to be general purpose search engines (such as Yandex™, Google™, Yahoo™ and the like). Others are considered to be vertical search engines—i.e. search engines dedicated to a particular topic of search—such as Momondo™ search engine dedicated to searching flights. Irrespective of which search engine is used, the search engine is generally configured to receive a search query from a user, to perform a search and to return a ranked search engine results page (SERP) to the user.
When accessing the particular web site or conducting the search, the user can be presented with generic content or personalized content. The generic content is the content that would be shown to any user accessing the particular resource without taking into account user-specific parameters, such as user interests, user interaction history and the like. Personalized content is a type of content that is specifically personalized for the given user, based on predicted or known user interest parameters.
For example, the search result ranking can be generic (using a generic search engine result ranking algorithm) or personalized for the given user (i.e. ranked at least in part based on the information known about the given user, such as past queries, past search result interactions and the like). By the same token, a given web resource can provide generic content and personalized content to the user. Personalized content can take many forms, such as a targeted message incorporated into the content of the web site, the targeted message having been selected for the given user as a relevant message based on certain information known about the given user.
The targeted message can be provided by a provider of the generic content of the given web resource or, alternatively, it can come from a third-party source and inserted into the generic content otherwise available on the web resource.
With reference to FIG. 1, there is depicted a typical prior art system (not numbered) for delivering personalized content to a user 104 of an electronic device 102 over a communication network 106. To that end, coupled to the communication network 106 are a content provider server 108 and a personalized content provider server 110. Let it now be assumed that the user 104 is desirous of accessing a web resource 112 hosted by the content provider server 108. To that end, the electronic device 102 can execute a browser, such as a GOOGLE™ browser, a YANDEX™ browser, a SAFARI™ browser and the like. Let is also be assumed that the user 104 types in a URL address associated with the network resource 112 (such as, as an example, www.example-address.com).
In response to the user 104 attempt to access the network resource 112, the electronic device 102 generates a resource request 120 in accordance with a suitable communication protocol and transmits it, via the communication network 106, to the content provider server 108. The content provider server 108 receives the resource request 120 and determines that the network resource 112 is what the user 104 is looking for (based on the URL, for example, the process known as “address resolving”). The content provider server 108 determines that the network resource 112 contains a generic portion and a personalized portion. The content provider server 108 can further determine that the content of the generic portion is stored by the content provider server 108 and that the content for the personalized portion is stored by the personalized content provider server 110. To that end, the content provider server 108 sends a personalized content request 122 via the communication network 106 (or a separate network, as the case may be) to the personalized content provider server 110. The personalized content request 122 includes inter alia an indication of a user identifier and/or an indication of user interests associated with the user 104.
Based on the user identifier and/or the user interests, the personalized content provider server 110 selects content for the personalized content portion and transmits a personalized content portion data 124, via the communication network 106, to the content provider server 108. The personalized content portion data 124 can, for example, contain a script for embedding into the personalized portion of the network resource 112, the script, when executed on the electronic device 102, for downloading the personalized content from the personalized content provider server 110.
US patent application 2015/0058141 is directed to detecting and mitigating advertisement abuse software on a user device includes producing a digital document comprising a specification for a default advertisement and content. Advertisement abuse software for preventing the default advertisement from being displayed as specified on the user device is detected based on a test associated with one or more test elements. A specification for embedding an alternative advertisement in the digital document is generated, so as to prevent detection by advertisement abuse software, and a display of one of the default advertisement and the alternative advertisement is facilitated on the user device based on whether advertisement abuse software is detected.
US patent application 2014/0129922 teaches ensuring integrity of a displayed web page in a client-server infrastructure including defining an enhancement for a web page markup for an enhanced web page content including a provided web page content and at least one identified provider added content as prerequisite content for the provided content, implementing a secure web browser document object model (DOM) enhancement and an enhanced document object model (DOM) processing embedding a user-requested content and the at least one corresponding prerequisite content based on the web page markup enhancement so that the requested content and the at least one prerequisite content of the enhanced web page content of an enhanced web page are secured and displayed as entity.
US patent application 2014/0229298 discloses determination of whether ad-blocking software is executing on a client device may be provided. Advertising content from an advertising server may be received at a client device. The advertising content may be provided in a client application executing on the client device and may have information embedded therein. The client device may attempt to detect the information embedded within the advertising content. Based on the attempted detection, it may be determined whether ad-blocking software is executing on the client device. When it is determined that ad-blocking software is executing on the client device, a remedial action may be performed.